Mistress Matisse

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Many journalists would like to write ethically and accurately
about sex work, but don’t know the best terms to use. Here is a quick guide to
current words and phrases to do with sex work for use in news reporting and journalism.

Problematic terms:

These are terms that, unless you are directly quoting
someone, or quoting from another piece of writing about sex work, should be
avoided.

Hooker, whore, streetwalker,
ho: Do not use these words, they are offensive. Sex workers sometimes use
these words either in casual conversation or to make a certain point, but
journalists (unless they ARE sex workers) should not.

Prostitute/Prostitution:
These terms are generally considered to carry a negative connotation. But in
many countries, they are legal terms, so it’s sometimes necessary to use them. But
use them sparingly, and only if it is specifically in connection with someone
being accused of a crime. Whenever possible, say sex work, or sex trade, or sex industry.

Courtesan and sugarbaby are marketing terms used by sex workers. However, in a news story, they come across as affected,
and usually imply that the person speaking/being spoken of thinks they are “higher-class”
and “different from” other sex workers. There may be certain times when the use of either of these terms is necessary - for example, if one is writing about sugardaddy/sugarbaby websites. But do not use them as general terms for sex workers.

The word pimp
should generally not be used in current journalism about sex work. Its original meaning has been co-opted into
other uses, and it is at best a glamorous description of someone who
has an abusive/criminal/exploitative interaction with a sex worker. Anti-sex work activists
use the term to bring about a confused emotional response in the reader that’s
strongly rooted in racism. If you must speak of someone who has a business
relationship with a sex worker, find out what that person actually does for her, and say manager, booker,driver, security, administrative assistant,
etc. (The exception would be if someone is formally charged with a crime with the word pimping as part of the language of the law.)
The word madam is archaic and should not be used except in historical references.

Prostituted woman,
prostitution survivor, sex slave: these are all inflammatory terms that
objectify the person being spoken of, and both fetishize and disempower people who have done/are
doing sex work.

Sexual surrogate: Thisis a very specific (and controversial) type of therapy, and many people do not consider sexual surrogates to be sex workers. Only use this term if you are completely clear that the specific person being discussed calls themselves that. Do not use any other sex worker terminology to refer to a sexual surrogate.

Do not use the term trafficking victim as a synonym for sex worker. Also, do not use the term self-trafficked, as it has no logical meaning.

Do not use the term child prostitute.

Do not speak of men buying
a sex worker, or using her. Say visiting her, seeing her, hiring her, having a session with her. Also, do
not speak of someone selling her body.

Do not use the word john.
It is extremely dated and negative, and no one but anti-sex workers uses that term.Use the term clients or customers.

Better Terms To Use:

Sex work/Sex workers: this is
the most general and the least judgmental term you can use. It's an umbrella term
that encompasses everyone in the sex industry; escorts, dancers, dominatrixes, porn
models, cam girls (or boys), everyone. Those terms
are all non-judgmental terms to use to describe specific jobs in the sex industry. (The term is also sometimes written as one word: sexwork, sexworker, especially on Twitter.)

The term call girl
is not an offensive term, but it is rather dated, and not much used any more.Mistress (meaning:
not a dominatrix, but the other kind of mistress) is rather vague, but not
offensive per se.

There is no one generally accepted term for people who do
massage or other bodywork with a sexual element, but sensual touch provider is probably the most polite. Sometimes the
term Tantric touch provider is used.

Women who work in strip clubs can be either dancers or strippers.

It is acceptable to refer to someone who does in-person sex work as a professional companion.

Clients who frequent sex worker review boards will sometimes
use the term hobbyist to refer to themselves. Also, some sex work review
sites refer to sex workers as providers (as short for “adult services providers”), and
sex workers occasionally use this term themselves.

To call someone a sex worker is to say that they have agency in their behavior, so it is contradictory to speak of "forced sex work". However, if on occasion you need to strongly differentiate between people who are being victimized
versus people who are not, you can speak of consensual adult sex work, or just adult sex work. To do so every time would be redundant and unnecessary. The opposite of sex work is criminal sexual exploitation, or simply rape, kidnapping, etc.

If you wish to speak of people who are the most vulnerable and marginalized in sex work, you can say street sex workers, or survival sex workers.

Decriminalization of sex work is
very very different from Legalization.
Do not use the words interchangeably. Decriminalization
means the repeal of all laws that impose any criminal penalty on the private, consensual
and appropriate adult exchange of sex for money. Legalization means that the consensual adult exchange of sex for
money remains mainly a crime, but the state creates a few strictly-controlled
loopholes for situations in which it will be tolerated, although still heavily stigmatized.

(Note: I did not list what terms to use when talking about male sex workers, because I'm not one. If I get information about what terms male sex workers prefer, I will add that here.)

Monday, July 21, 2014

Snakes In The Garden Of Eden

UPDATE DEC 2014: The final expose on the lies of Megan Griffithsand her movie Eden.This is a long but amazingly-researched and thoughtful article by The Stranger's Jen Graves, who was one of the people who originally voted to award Megan GriffithsThe Stranger's "Genius Award". A must-read about how sex trafficking lies are created and unquestioned, until it's too late. In this article, the movie Eden is finally shown as the complete fraud that is really is.

Let’s talk about Seattle filmmaker Megan Griffiths. It will be a fairly one-sided conversation, you understand, because
she won’t talk to me. She won’t talk to anyone – at least, not about the subject
at hand, which is her breakthrough movie, “Eden.” But somebody connected with
that movie has told a lot of big lies about sex workers, and I really want
to know who.

The story begins in 2012, when Megan Griffiths co-wrote
and directed Eden. The film was billed as true story presenting the reality of
sex trafficking in the US, and a graphic and harrowing account it was. In the
mid-nineties (so the story goes), a young Korean-American woman named Chong Kim
was kidnapped by an international ring of sex traffickers, held captive, raped,
tortured, was witness to several murders, and along with hundreds of other
kidnapped women and girls, forced to be a prostitute. After some time, she made
a daring escape.

The real-life Chong Kim then went on to became a
highly-visible professional spokesperson for anti-trafficking campaigns, and so
it was that Seattle producer Colin Plank got her and Megan Griffiths together to
make Eden. Eden was released at SXSW to huge critical acclaim, and went on to
garner multiple awards and fawning reviews. Megan Griffiths gave several
interviews together with Chong Kim, strongly emphasizing that the movie was a
true and accurate portrayal of Kim’s experiences and about the reality of sex
trafficking within the US. (Here and here.) All of the publicity materials and all other spokespeople for Eden did likewise.

Fast-forward to now: in the wake of the Somaly
Mam scandal about faked trafficking stories, people are suddenly examining the
stories told by other professional anti-trafficking activists more closely.
Around June 4, 2014, Breaking Out, an anti-trafficking organization that Chong
Kim was a board member of, publicly accused Ms. Kim of fraud. This
organization, Breaking Out, says that Chong Kim was never a victim of
trafficking, and that she completely invented her story in order to get money.
They have also produced court documents indicating that in 2009, Kim was
convicted of a felony charge, Theft By Swindle, for the amount of $15,000.

Basically, everything that Eden says about sex
trafficking is a lie. (It’s certainly not the first time a movie about sex
trafficking has been based on lies. Remember the movie “Taken”, with Liam
Neeson? The man whose real life experience it was supposedly inspired by was
later arrested for fraud. Here, and here.) No one but Chong Kim can really know what happened to
Chong Kim, and she is free to tell her story as she wishes. But as the creators
of Eden were quick to say, Eden is not just a story about one woman. Sex
workers around the world are organizing and fighting for our civil and human
rights, and Eden is a piece of propaganda specifically crafted to fight our
movement.

Here’s why: While adult consensual sex work is definitely
not the same thing as sex trafficking, there is no distinction made between the
two in law, or in anti-sex worker rhetoric. So from a law enforcement point of view, when one speaks of “fighting
trafficking” what that means is “arresting whores.” Some anti-sexwork campaigns
claim to focus on arresting clients, but the vast majority of people arrested
for sexwork are the workers, and they are not dangerous international
gangsters. They are usually women and transgender people, predominantly people of color, and they’re usually poor.

Interestingly, all the cops in the movie Eden were
also bad guys who were in league with the traffickers. If the main character of
Eden had come in contact with any non-crooked cops, she would have been arrested
and very probably imprisoned. But all
the spokespeople for Eden seemed to feel strongly that tougher laws and more
arrests is what we need to combat the mythical many-headed hydra of sex trafficking.

Eden also had a somewhat murky financial relationship with a number of anti-trafficking NGOs. When these organizations speak
of “sex trafficking” what they mean is: ANY exchange of sex for money, even if
it is between two adults and completely voluntary. No one, they say, can really
choose to do sex work willingly. People who think
they are doing sex work willingly are victims of “false consciousness” and
must be rescued from their own folly. By force, if necessary.

Eden is to the sex industry what “Reefer
Madness” is to marijuana legislation reform. It’s a titillating sexploitation
movie, purposely created for a neoconservative agenda of arresting more people
and controlling sexual behavior. It is a feel-good film for a sexual police
state, pernicious rubbish used to legitimize stigma and state-sponsored violence
against sex workers. It perpetuates the misery of people who are trapped
between poverty, a right-wing Christian anti-sex agenda, and the
prison-industrial complex. Eden should never have been used to solicit
charitable donations and get lucrative grants. It should very definitely not be
used to sway voters, influence public policy or government funding, or to
direct the focus of law enforcement.

In spite of repeated requests for comment, no one
connected to the film will make any statement in response to these allegations.
(Griffiths did publish one Tweet on saying she was “deeply concerned” about the allegations, but nothing more.) If they stand behind their work, then why won’t
they speak? I believe that Colin Plank
and Megan Griffiths knowingly perpetrated a fraud with the movie Eden. They
showed negligence of, if not actual disdain for, the truth. What they have done
may not rise to the level of legal fraud, but it is certainly a moral one. And
it’s a fraud that is still harming sex workers.

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

This is what I think about the sex work/ sex trafficking controversy, followed by a lot of links for further background and education. (Updated June 2014)I’m a sex worker, I like being a sex worker, and I am an
activist for the rights of sex workers. As part of that, I would like to see a
world where no one is forced to do sex work. That does happen sometimes, and
it's bad. But forced sex work is not the huge and scary problem some people
would like you think it is. It is not okay that it happens at all, but it
simply does not happen NEARLY as often as anti-sex workers say it does.

To begin with, understand this fact: When lawmakers and
anti-sex work activists say “sex trafficking” they mean ANY exchange of sex for
money, even if it is between two adults and completely voluntary. Let me say
that again, because I think it bears repeating. To an anti-trafficking
activist, an adult person, fully in possession of her rational faculties and
completely independent of anyone else’s influence, who chooses to exchange a
sexual act for money = a sex trafficking victim.

I think this is deeply insulting to people who really are
victimized. I think one should only use the work trafficked to mean a person
who is truly being forced or coerced, or controlled by another person in a way
that's harmful or exploitative. I also think it's unjust to invalidate the
agency of an adult person. You own your body, and if you, as a consenting
adult, choose to have sex with another consenting adult, the state should not
have the right to say, "No, we don't approve of your reason for having
sex, so we are declaring your act to be a crime and arresting you both."
It does not matter if you decided to have sex because someone bought you
dinner, or because they offered you a diamond ring, or if they offered you a
hundred dollars.

Further, no one should declare that you are a
"victim" of anything without your consent. It is for the person who
has had the experience to identify whether she/he was a victim of something or
not. It’s wrong to impose a label on someone they did not choose for
themselves.

Since about 2008, the rhetoric about any act of sex for
money has changed, and it is now all defined as "trafficking". That's
happened for a variety of reasons, most of them to with the allocation of grant
money and the erosion of civil liberties. So the War On Sex Workers* is much
like the War On Drugs. There is a system of restrictive ideas about what kind
of behavior is socially acceptable, which have been woven into government
policy and law, and there are a lot of people whose jobs and money and sense of
power are all dependent on keeping that system in place. If there is no social
panic about shadowy international crime rings and millions of women and
children being abused in sensational ways, those people will lose power.

Plus, whenever sex is involved, some people have emotional
responses which are based in their own experience rather that of the putative
victim. There are religious organizations and moral crusaders involved in
anti-trafficking who are not shy about their wish to impose a certain type of
morality and social control, especially on women.

In addition, keep in mind that to many people, arresting and
imprisoning US sex workers is not only a moral issue but part of a
multimillion-dollar industry. Whenever there is money moving around, in the
form of government grants and private donations to anti-sex work NGOs, and
lucrative contracts and tax benefits to the private-prison industry,
motivations can drift pretty far from the strictly altruistic. Laws against
prostitution are selectively enforced, generally based on race and class, and
overwhelmingly by gender. So the people at the bottom of the social-power
pyramid are those most likely to be hurt by the laws against it.

That's why when you read scary headlines about “X Bazillion
People Are Being Sex Trafficked", it does not necessarily mean the person
is underage, or has been taken from one place to another, or is an undocumented
immigrant, or is being forced or coerced into doing sex work against his/her
wishes. It also doesn't mean that anyone can actually see/find those supposed
victims, since they are often pure invention, as we will see.

People can be abused in systems of sex work - just as they
can be abused in non-sex work forms of labor, and in all other social systems.
But criminalization and stigmatization of all sex work is not the right answer.
People are abused in the social institution of marriage, too. But we do not
outlaw marriage and arrest anyone who says, "I do." People are raped,
but we do not respond to that fact by outlawing all consensual sex. On a moral
level, we do not want anyone to be harmed. But when it comes to allocating
public resources to combat that, the current system does not work. It is not
useful to treat a very wide spectrum of people around the world as if they were
all the same one-dimensional “victim”, and neither is it wise to try to condense
this multifaceted issue into a few bits of bumper-sticker wisdom.

My goal here is to create sharper understanding of how the
situation is not as black-and-white as people are often told, and that some of
the systems that are ostensibly used to "help" people are not what
those people themselves want, and may actually cause even more harm. It's crucial to have a true understanding of
the reality of the situation, so we can devise systems that offer anyone being
victimized real assistance while also treating them with dignity and being
respectful of their agency and their wishes. To that end, this is the reading
that I recommend to get a fuller understanding of the challenges of helping
those who need help, without criminalizing, stigmatizing and generally imposing
a very binary victim/criminal worldview onto a large and diverse set of people.

First, understand terms:
A very quick overview of different views of how sex work should be
treated - prohibition, decriminalization, legalization, etc. I am an advocate
for decriminalization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution#Laws

Then, start reading here: Journalist Melissa Gira Grant’s
article “The War On Sex Workers”*. Grant has written a lot on this topic, but
this is a good snapshot of the problem. "Although nearly all
prostitution-related law in the United States is made at the state or municipal
level, redefining prostitution as trafficking provides a rationale for federal
action against the sex trade... It is about an unholy marriage of feminism with
the conservatism and police power that many feminists claim to stand
against." http://reason.com/archives/2013/01/21/the-war-on-sex-workers

The story of a landmark study by John Jay College of
Criminal Justice that "demolished virtually every stereotype surrounding
the underage sex trade". For example: the majority of underage people
doing sex work are actually young men of color.
The FBI reports
that $80 million is spent annually for law enforcement and social services to
rescue approximately 200 child prostitutes per year. That's a
$400,000-per-rescued-child average. Also, only 10% of underage sex workers
report having pimps. http://www.seattleweekly.com/2011-11-02/news/lost-boys-demolishing-the-underage-prostitute-stereotype/

The throngs of sex-trafficking
victims (of any age) simply cannot be found

Washington Post, 2007: “The fact that the alleged hundreds
of thousands of sex trafficking victims simply cannot be found has been noted.
"President Bush has blanketed the nation with 42 Justice Department task
forces and spent more than $150 million -- all to find and help the estimated
hundreds of thousands of victims of forced prostitution or labor in the United
States. But the government couldn't find them." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201401.html

Tennesse: Chattanooga police recently found exactly one
trafficking victim, although a study in 2011 claimed the area had "more
than a hundred". Quotes from an editorial: "Chattanooga Police Chief
Bobby Dodd said the sex trafficking incident...was "the only one I know
of." And also, "The study is, apparently, based on erroneous surveys
and severely lacking in verifiable facts... Unfortunately, local organizations
appear unprepared to help what few sex trafficking cases there may be in the
Chattanooga area." http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2013/jan/26/sex-trafficking-study-apparently-free-press/

“Pimps and clients
are arrested” No. Usually it is the seller, not the buyer who is arrested. Arresting
people for sexwork takes resources away from the truly needy, and harms women.

Colorado: A study of arrests in Denver reveals that
prostitution busts affect women more than men: adult males made up 39 percent
of arrests, while adult females made up 61 percent,and women are more likely to
get jail time: 70 percent of women, as opposed to just 36 percent of men.
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2012/05/prostitution_denver_study_women_johns.php

The Global Alliance Against Trafficking of Women (GAATW)
released a 75-page paper disproving the myth that major sporting events attract
large numbers of sex workers, let alone human traffickers. “There is no
evidence that large sporting events cause an increase in trafficking for
prostitution.” (PDF) http://www.gaatw.org/publications/WhatstheCostofaRumour.11.15.2011.pdf

New 2014Superbowl Sex Trafficking Stories: A reminder: there
are no definitive “sex trafficking” statistics for the United States. They are
not collected by any central agency. So any article you read that says “X City
is the Number One hub for sex trafficking!” is completely and 100% WRONG. There
simply is no data to back that up. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bogus. They are making
that up.

But! There is one question about sex trafficking in the US
that HAS been exhaustively documented: sex trafficking around The Super Bowl.
And the consensus continues to be: it doesn’t exist.

Analysis from Justin Ling here: "Not Quite The Nordic
Model: The federal government has tabled its new prostitution bill. But does it
put the lives of sex workers at risk?"http://nationalmagazine.ca/Articles/June-2014/Not-quite-the-Nordic-model.aspx

Background stories:

UK, The Guardian, 2008: Britain's "Poppy Project"
which received 5.8million pounds in funding, was widely denounced by 27 key
figures in sex work research from prestigious universities across the UK and
overseas. They stated that the report was conducted with neither ethical
approval nor acknowledgement of evidence and co-authored by a journalist known
for producing anti-prostitution findings. “You can't just churn out political
propaganda and say it's research. You end up with very dangerous policy.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/oct/03/research.women

US policies conflate trafficking and prostitution in Thailand:
The Nation, Noy Thrupkaew “I remember talking to US officials who were confused
that there could be voluntary prostitution," he says. "They thought,
'Why would we need to differentiate? It's all forced and largely the same as
trafficking. If we come across it, we should shut it down.' If you think that
sex work is one of the worst things that can happen to a person, then I guess
you can say you are rescuing people to take them out of it." http://www.thenation.com/article/crusade-against-sex-trafficking?page=0,1

Sex Work And The Law In Latin America: “Sex trafficking is
criminalized, but often mistakenly blurred with sex work. Confusing sex
workers, who have chosen to engage in this area of work, with trafficked persons
who have suffered some form of coercion, silences the legitimate voices of sex
workers and actually blocks discussions on how to end human trafficking…. As
sex work becomes more secretive, so the vulnerability of the human rights of
sex workers increases.” http://www.aidsalliance.org/NewsDetails.aspx?Id=291530

Sex work in Australia: (Note: prostitution is legal soma
parts of Australia, although regulations vary from state to state.) Researchers
tell federal parliament that illegal brothel raids a waste of time: "Instead
of an evidence-based approach addressing real vulnerabilities, Australia's
approach continues to try to detect the mythical trafficking victim and
trafficker that is a media-driven stereotype." http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/04/23/13/16/brothel-raids-a-waste-of-time-sex-workers

More From Down Under: Decriminalizing sex work does not
increase problems. In Australia and New Zealand, laws regarding sex work have
been undergoing reform aimed at decriminalization since the early 1990s. A 2012
report to Australian Ministry Of Health finds decriminalizing sex work has NOT
increased trafficking, or voluntary sex work, or STIs. The whole thing is
fascinating, but there’s a summary of the findings on page 6 and its
recommendations on page 7. (PDF) http://maggiemcneill.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/nsw-sex-industry-report-2012.pdf

UK Dr. Brooke Magnati has a lot of good things to say on the
subject:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/9907625/Demonising-sex-workers-makes-their-lives-more-dangerous.html
She also tells a story of women being incarcerated in Ireland for (among other
things) being promiscuous/sex workers, well into the 1970’s. This is just one
example of why many sex workers are extremely leery of “help” from
government/charity orgs. http://sexonomics-uk.blogspot.com/2013/01/when-help-is-anything-but.html

Video: Here's a good video, with citations, explaining
exactly how the US uses a gag order, The Anti-Prostitution Oath, to impose a
fundamentalist morality on public health efforts and constrain harm reduction
strategies around the world. http://vimeo.com/43262622

Video: The Thai sex workers rights group, Empower
Foundation, has made a ten minute video called "Last Raid In Siam"
that shows how they feel about organizations that raid and "rescue"
them. (Youtube, has sound, worksafe) "Last Raid In Siam" is funny,
but the real-life story often isn't. Two women died while recently trying to
escape from an anti-prostitution center where they were being held against
their will. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70rPAxLFFKU

The Big Picture: If
there is such a place as one-stop reading for Everything You Need To Know about
sex work and the myth of sex trafficking… Well, there, isn’t really. But I
can narrow it down.

Sex Work group blog Tits And Sass always has great opinions what
is happening for sex workers in the US and abroad. http://titsandsass.com/

And for extra-credit Deep Reading: “Sex Work Imperialism” by
Scott Long “The aim is to roll back more than a decade of progress at the UN,
and around the world, in safeguarding sex workers’ health and safety.” http://paper-bird.net/2013/09/24/sex-imperialism/

Friday, April 18, 2014

Originally Published 2007

Ok, so I have to tell you an amusing story about an elevator encounter I had this past weekend... Or more accurately, one Candy and Jae and I had.

Candy and Jae have played with Traveler and me before, and they all like each other, so when I suggested they come visit us late one evening, he said, “Why don’t we all go to dinner first?” So we all went out to a lovely dinner, and there was some wine, and perhaps we were all feeling just a touch merry and uninhibited. Although really, we can all get that way without wine.

Now, you probably don’t know this, but there was a big convention in Seattle these last few days – of orthodontists. When I say big, I mean we heard there were something like thirty thousand orthodontists in Seattle. Not just American orthodontists, either - there were Spanish orthodontists, there were French orthodontists, there were Indian orthodontists. Heck, there were orthodontists here from countries I couldn’t find on a map. I saw a lot of said orthodontists in lobby and elevator of the Fairmont, and plus, we got the skinny from the valets, because those guys always know what’s going on. And they like to chat with cute girls.

We were looking more than just cute, actually, all dressed up for an evening of fun and games. I was wearing a slinky, skintight black Wolford top and skirt and spike heels, Candy was wearing very high heels and a flippy little black and white dress which made one think that her legs might really and truly be a mile long, and Jae was wearing an outfit that we decided could best be described as “a kinky SS cheerleader”. We were quite a sight, in the lobby of the serene and conservative Fairmont Hotel. We seemed to cause something of a stir on our way out to dinner, so on our way back in, I told Traveler to drop the three of us off at a side entrance, so he didn't have to escort us back past the interested gaze of the various hotel staff. I mean, the man stays at the Fairmont with his business companions as well, let’s not complicate his life by raising too many eyebrows.

So we three ladies are in the elevator, riding back up to the suite, and an older couple – perhaps late-sixties – get on with us. They were both all dressed up, obviously coming from some social event, and something about the lady’s expression reminded me of one of my great-aunts – the one who was essentially a kind person, but sometimes a trifle querulous.

Perhaps it was the reminder of dealing with older relatives that made me say to them, “Careful, this elevator’s been bouncing a little when it’s stopped, don’t trip.”

Just being a good citizen, you know? But Candy and Jae took my remark as a cue to begin bantering with the man in a manner that one might call flirtatious.

He looked mildly startled but pleased. His wife’s face suggested that she didn’t know quite what to think about these oddly dressed and chatty strangers, but that given some time, she might work up to being displeased by them.

This was not exactly my idea of being low-profile, but, luckily even a quaint old elevator like the Fairmont’s doesn’t take long to get up seven floors. The couple were going on up, and I breathed a small sigh of relief as Candy and I got off the elevator, with Jae a few steps behind us, saying a polite goodnight to them like the former debutante that she is.

And the woman calls out, in a half-sweet, half-suspicious voice, “Are you three orthodontist-girls?”

Now, the first thought that went through my mind was: what exactly would an orthodontist-girl be? A female orthodontist? Oh, wow, that’s real feminist of you, lady. Gloria Steinem thanks you.

Or maybe she means orthodontist’s assistants. I didn’t know what such a person’s correct title would be. Neither did she, apparently.

But, while I am sure there are some very tarty, kinky-looking people who work in orthodontist’s offices in all capacities, my strongest reaction was: lady, do we fucking look like orthodontists?

However, I would not dream of saying such a thing to a blue-haired, pearl-wearing, great-aunt-ish lady. My Southern upbringing would never permit it.

So I turned around to civilly decline any connection with the tooth-straightening industry. Candy, however, is a woman of fewer words. She gave short laugh and a broad, dismissive wave of one hand, and sang out clearly, “Oh, hell no!” Then she turned and stalked off down the pastel blue hallway in her black and white faux fur coat, like Cruella DeVille gone vegetarian.

I was at the wrong angle, but I caught just enough of a glimpse of the woman’s face to decide that I would follow Candy, abandoning Jae, who stammered something about Tourette’s Syndrone as the elevator doors closed on the outraged lady.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you said that!” I was laughing so hard Candy had to grab my arm to keep me from stumbling.

Jae caught up with us. She was laughing too, in that horrified way one does when one sees a sacred cow – Always be respectful of your elders – tipped over into the mud. “Jesus, you should have seen her, her eyes got big and her lips got all mad and tight, and her chin started quivering like a bobble-head doll.”

“I didn’t really think about it,” she said, biting her lip. “I didn’t mean to be rude, it just - came out.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s probably good that you didn’t say something like: “Hell no, we’re not orthodontist-girls, we’re a bunch of perverted harlots, and we’re going to go stick needles through this guy’s nipples, you wanna watch?”

That made Candy laugh, too. “Yeah, well, that’s sort of what I was thinking. Only not the wanna-watch part.”

So if you’re a lady of mature years who had an encounter with three wild women at the Fairmont this weekend: Sorry, we didn’t mean to be rude. Want us to stick needles in your nipples to make up for it?

Saturday, January 25, 2014

First, quick backstory: Professor
Patti Adler is a professor of sociology at University of Colorado Boulder. Last
year, a class she teaches about prostitution came under fire. There were
conflicting reports about her being fired or leaving voluntarily, but it seemed
she had left. Then, she came back. (Or maybe she never really left, it’s unclear to me.)

Adler, who called the class "the highlight of the semester in my signature
course," described what goes on during the prostitution
lecture: Professor Adler has some of her teaching assistants (who are undergraduates) dress up as various
kinds of prostitutes -- she named as categories "slave whores, crack
whores, bar whores, streetwalkers, brothel workers and escort services."
They work with Adler on scripts in which they describe their lives as these
types of prostitutes.

During the lecture, Adler talks with
them (meaning: the teaching assistants, in character) about such issues as
their backgrounds, "how they got into the business," how much they
charge, the services they perform, and the risks they face of violence, arrest
and AIDS. The class is a mix of lecture and discussion, just like most classes,
she said.

So basically she has student dress up in sexy outfits and stand up in front of the class and recite stories she teaches them
about sex work. Presumably the students can also ask questions, which the
students-pretending-to-be-sexworkers will answer, based on the information
Professor Adler has taught them.

My impression, based on reading the stories
about it, was that this was really not cool. Professor Adler’s list of sex worker
social groups sounds extremely dated at best, and hardly academic at all. Her repetition
of the word whore is offensive. And having student dress up in costumes and
talk about what types of sex their character has is clearly a titillating
feature that has no place in a classroom.

But the real point is: there are
real sex workers who could speak about their lives, but are not permitted to. I
myself have visited college classes and talked about being a sex worker. Having
a guest come and speak to a class on this subject is very much a thing that can
be done – if the professor wishes it. Professor Adler apparently does not want
actual sex workers to speak in her class, she only wishes to have her students
say what she tells them to say.

I guarantee you that a lot of sex
workers have had to sit in that class and watch all that. I myself have sat in
college classroom and seethed as professors lectured the most arrant nonsense
about my life. I cannot imagine how I’d feel if I had to watch a bunch of
not-sex-workers dress up and play-act little skits about being me, and see that
be represented as a college-level of education about sex work. I was glad she
wasn’t going to teach it any more.

So that’s backstory. Today, out of
nowhere, I got this email. And wow, do I have a lot of thoughts about this. I’m
framing them, but in the meantime, feel free to reply to me on Twitter.

Mistress Matisse,

Leonard says you might be open to
giving me some help with my skit this semester. I’ve only gotten a 1-semester
reprieve, and then I have to go, but I’d like to be more sensitive than I might
have been and make sure I don’t insult or misrepresent anybody. I can’t have
people come to my class because the class is really not about prostitution,
it’s about deviant subcultures, and I use the example of prostitution to
illustrate a stratification hierarchy. Many college students have only one
image when they think about prostitutes and that’s probably a streetwalker, but
I used a dozen people to come down and be interviewed by me starting with the
slave role, the crack-addicted role, the streetwalker (male/female/pimp), women
who frequent bars to pick up customers, brothels, and escort services. With
that many people I can only give about 3 minutes to each and I ask most people
the same basic things:

What’s your family background, your
educational background, how did you get into what you’re doing now, what do you
do and how much do you charge, what’s your risk of violence/arrest/disease, and
what are your future prospects.

Might you be willing to give me some
feedback on a particular stratum or two? Can you tell me what your area of
expertise is?

I am a CU alum
and I teach Math and Science classes at Metro State in Denver. I followed with
some interest your brief notoriety and I am glad to see that you have been
reinstated. I wrote a letter of support to president Benson and I'm sure my
effort did very little to tip the scales in your favor. I was just so outraged
at what looked like an attempt to censor your academic freedom that I had to
vent. In full disclosure, Bronson Hilliard and I played on the same team in the
CU trivia bowl in the 90s and I got him to help me direct my letter.

My unsolicited
advice comes from my reading of an unusual group of authors on Twitter. I'm
sure @mistressmatisse and @Maggie_McNeill don't represent the
opinions of the entire sex worker community, but they both criticized you based
on the assumption that people who are actual sex-workers need to have a voice
in any discussion of them. I think that point has some validity. I also think
either of them would be glad to share their experiences and knowledge with you.
I am almost certain that a letter from you would totally floor them, so it
might be worth a look just for that. Maggie mentions you in her blog here http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/
and can be contacted at maggiemcneill@earthlink.net;
You can take a look at my contentious discussion with Mistress Matisse on Twitter
on last December 16

here's an
excerpt, where I claimed you were fired for the content of your class (Bronson
and Phil DiStephano both said you weren't "fired" and I guess you
weren't after all) I suggested that it would have been cool if she had been a
guest in your class and she agreed with me there.

Thanks for
taking the time to look at this mess. I admire the fact that you are able to
generate such long term interest for your class. I mostly teach service classes
like Business Calculus or classes for Education majors. In the latter, I am
always doing anything to get them to show a little independent thought. I tell
them to question authority and it is always a disappointment that more of them don't
see the irony in that statement coming from a person in my position.